Press releases

"I am finishing shooting my film The Milky Way in late September. In 2016 I will participate in the Festival de Cannes. Therefore I will be able to start shooting the film in Belarus in 2017,” said Emir Kusturica said during the meeting.

In the autumn of 2014 the Film Studio Belarusfilm and the French film production company Cinema Soleil signed a memorandum on joint production of a full-length feature film If Not Now, When? by Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica. The script was written by Kusturica together with Gordan Mihic based on the same-name novel by Italian poet, writer and translator Primo Levi.

The story follows a number of Jewish partisans and resistance fighters as they struggle to survive and sabotage the German war machine behind Nazi lines during World War II, starting in the western Soviet Union (Belarus) and ending in Milan. The novel was written by Primo Levi in 1982, and was awarded Campiello and Viareggio Prizes, the prestigious literary awards of Italy.

Emir Kusturica is the Serbian film director, screenwriter, actor, and producer. His films won the awards of the biggest film festivals in Europe, including two Golden Palms at the Cannes Film Festival. Emir Kusturica is Knight of the Legion of Honor, a member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of the Republika Srpska. Emir Kusturica was awarded the prize of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko For Preserving and Developing Traditions of Spirituality in the Cinema.